Action Item
Send updated logo files to Sarah before EOD
Slack2:15 PM
AasideCapturing and Organizing Thoughts in Context
Independently designed and built Aaside, a native macOS app that captures thoughts from anywhere, preserves their working context, and uses AI to organize them automatically.
Capture a thought, action items, or idea...
Figma6:02 PM
Add ⌘ ↵
One shortcut, from anywhere
⌥⇧S from any app on your Mac. The capture window appears instantly, no switching, no friction, no interruption.
⌥⇧S
Context, automatically
Time, active app, and project are tagged automatically on every capture. Know exactly where every thought came from.
Figma 2:34 PM
Pro
AI that organizes for you
Action Item, My Task, or Idea, Aaside classifies every note in the background so you don't have to think about it.
Action Item
My Task
Idea
Pro
Image to text
Paste or attach a screenshot and Aaside reads the text in it, right on your Mac. The image never leaves your device.
Call Dana re: Q4 launch
Pro
Incomplete note alerts
A gentle nudge in the bell when Action Items and Tasks are still open. Daily, weekly, or monthly, you choose.
3 incomplete notes
Action Items & Tasks still open
Pro
Translate & proofread
Clean up or translate any note in one click. Your original is always kept, with every version one tab away.
OriginalProofreadTranslation
Let's review the launch plan together tomorrow morning.
Every thought, sorted on its own.
Click a note, switch categories, and mark something done. This is the real Aaside dashboard, try it for yourself.
Monday, June 29
My Task
Refactor onboarding flow copy for clarity
Figma9:30 AM
Idea
Dark mode toggle could live in the nav, not buried in settings
Figma10:05 AM
Misc
Loved the gradient mesh kit from that Mobbin collection
Safari11:42 AM
My Task
Export assets at 2x for the App Store listing
Finder1:20 PM
Action Item
Schedule design review with the team to discuss
Notion4:45 PM
Where I started
Thoughts often arrive while people are working in another app, joining a meeting, or reviewing references. Opening and organizing a traditional notes app interrupts that flow.
Quick notes preserve the text but lose the surrounding context. Later, users may remember what they wrote but not why it mattered or what they were doing at the time.
Designing the experience
Defined the core product experience: Designed a global-shortcut workflow that captures thoughts without pulling users away from their current app.
Made captured thoughts easier to revisit: Preserved app and time context, added AI-assisted classification, and designed daily and category-based retrieval.
Built the production app end to end: Implemented the native macOS experience, authentication, sync, localization, and AI infrastructure with Tauri, React, Rust, and Supabase.
Created and launched the product: Developed the Aaside identity, landing page, pricing experience, and Mac App Store release.
Learnings & reflection
The fastest capture experience is not simply the one with the fewest fields. It is the one that records useful information without asking the user to provide it.
AI felt most valuable as quiet background infrastructure. Automatic classification supported the workflow without turning the product into another chatbot.
Building the production app exposed interaction details that static design tools could not reveal, especially around window behavior, keyboard focus, system permissions, synchronization, and failure states.